Quiet Like the Snow
by The Great Mikey Weston
Summary: Amaterasu's reign is glorious, and it seems as though Nippon's peace will last a while.. That is, until a pack of chaotic demons make their appearance, bent on killing the unborn Child of the Sun. Meanwhile, terminally ill werewolf boy Jay just wants to prove himself- but maybe being thrown years into the past to save the world isn't what he had in mind. Pre-Okamiden. Discontinued.


**_~A/N~_**

_...Heh heh heh. Bet you didn't see this coming, did you?_

_Well, here goes... an Okami SI of my very own... bear with me, because it's gonna start off slow, and I'm half flying by the seat of my pants, but this is gonna go somewhere if it kills me._

_Enjoy...!_

* * *

_What would it take for things to be quiet?_

_Quiet like the snow..._

* * *

"...and after all was said and done, Nippon was finally at peace."

Ivory hands folded as the sentence was finished, and the room fell into a warm, comforting silence. A fire flickered in a stone fireplace nearby, casting its orange glow over a small, but comfortable living room, adorned with couches and cushions, a plush red carpet, and a very old-looking wooden rocking chair- currently in use. Enormous pairs of green, yellow, and blue eyes all gazed up at the occupant of this chair adoringly.

"Mama, is that it?"

"That's the end of the story?"

"We wanna hear more!"

The woman in the rocking chair gave the three children an amused smile. She seemed a normal woman, with coal-black hair and an admittedly strange yellow eye, but her other eye was permanently shut by a quilt of terrible scars, and a pair of white wolf ears sat where human ears might have been; and if one cared to look, one would notice a white wolf's tail as well. "I don't have any more to tell. That's all of Okami Amaterasu's legend that's been passed down. If there was anything else, it was lost a long time ago."

A chorus of disappointed "Awwwwww..."s rang through the air as black and white wolf ears tilted down in sadness. The three children, too, seemed fairly normal- the black haired boy with the yellow eyes, the white haired girl with green and the dirty-blonde eldest with blue- but again, as with the woman, they sported ears and tails.

"It's almost time for dinner, anyway," the woman mused. "There's the story of the Child of the Sun, Okami Chibiterasu, but we wouldn't have time for it before your father gets back from hunting."

"Can we go outside and wait for him?" the dirty-blonde girl begged, black ears pricking hopefully. The other two children followed suit, giving their mother a whopping three pairs of enormous, sparkling Bambi eyes.

As could be predicted, the woman gave an amused snort, and simply said, "If you really want. But you have to come in early tonight!" she called, as the children squealed and ran out of the living room at once. "It's a full moon tonight. The villagers are going to be hunting for any werewolf they can find, and you don't want to be caught out there while they're doing that."

"Yes, Mama!" the children chorused, their voices somewhat farther away by this point due to them running into the front hall.

"Kanny, keep an eye on Yume! And don't go too far...!" But by this time, it was far too late for her to say much else, because the front door had opened, and after a second, shut. The woman grinned and shook her head, wondering what she was going to do with those children, before turning her head and blinking in surprise at what she saw. A final child, this one about the size of the black haired middle child, was getting up from a nearby couch and preparing to run after the others. The woman's grin faded as she watched him smooth his crimson hoodie and carefully fold the sleeves up so they didn't reach his fingertips.

"Jay, wait."

The small boy froze. Crimson eyes rivaling the hoodie the boy wore peered at his mother tentatively, shyly, from beneath a scruffy mop of white hair. These two factors added with his shockingly pale skin identified him for what he was: an albino.

"I don't think you should go out with them."

The boy, Jay, seemed to expect this answer, and his eyes instantly fell to the floor. The flattening of his ears expressed how crestfallen he was by this answer, though the way he glanced back up at his mother suggested he had expected it. He didn't speak- he simply looked at her, a slight frown tugging at his mouth.

"I know that's not what you wanted to hear," the woman said softly, as she stood from the chair and took a step forward to kneel by her son. "You're the oldest and you don't want me coddling you anymore. I know. But I'm worried about you, you know that."

Jay didn't speak, but glanced away as his mother's hand touched his forehead. "You're running a bit of a fever," she said uneasily. "Are you sure you want to go out? I think you should stay here."

Jay looked at her quietly for a few seconds, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, he pulled a notepad from his pocket- and a pencil flew out from his other pocket, shrouded in a pale red light. The small werewolf boy's eyes followed its progress as it quickly floated toward where he held his notepad, and began to write. The pencil work was rather quick, unusually quick, even, and within no time the pencil- which he seemed to be controlling- had written a sentence. The pencil returned to Jay's pocket, and the boy handed it to his mother to read.

_'I only have another year.'_

The reaction this caused in his mother was heartwrenching: she shut her lone eye and sighed quietly as she put a hand on his shoulder. "I know... you've only got so much longer..." She bit her lip for a moment as she seemed to be lost in thought. Finally, she opened her eye again to look at Jay. "...Alright. You can go. Just... be careful, okay? If you feel sick, come in. I don't want you passing out again."

Jay's ears instantly pricked, and he nodded eagerly as his mother handed the small notepad back. He pocketed it and the pencil, and smiled fondly at the black haired werewolf before running off into the hallway that his siblings had just run down. His mother watched him and tried her best to smile- but even so, she couldn't fight back the sadness in her face as she watched her oldest child leave.

_My name is Jay. Jay Pendleton. I'm eleven years old and the oldest of my siblings: my twin sister Akane, my little brother Dimitrius, and my little sister Yume._

_But that's not gonna be true for much longer. I was born albino, really small, and really sick and weak. I run fevers often, I get sick easily, and I even pass out. I-I'm still normal! I just have to rest more than other kids. But... I don't want to rest too much. Because, well, I've got a year to live. See, when Kanny and I were born, Mom says the doctors first told her that I would never be able to talk (and I can't- I'm mute), and guessed that I wouldn't live to see five. When I was four, the guess moved to nine. Now though, they're sure- I've got until twelve, and then, my life is over. They're not even sure I'll make it through my first transformation._

_Oh, did I mention? I'm a werewolf, and so's the rest of my family. Except for my dad, he's telekinetic. That's where Dimitrius and I got our powers from: we can manipulate objects without touching them. Dad's from a place far away- a place I want to see before I pass on._

_Back on subject. Werewolves don't transform until adolescence, or a little earlier, depending. If you're the right age, and something traumatizing happens to you, you might transform. From then on you transform randomly, and you have the chance to either train yourself to transform at will, or leave your body's internal clock to revert to full moon transformations only. In an underground community like ours, surrounded by werewolf-hunters, full moon isn't an option, because that's when the hunters are always searching for us._

_My mom is always telling us stories about the gods of the old days- thousands of years ago, they roamed the earth freely, she says. But now, people have all but forgotten them. She still believes, and so do I. Maybe next year, I'll be able to join them above._

_Mom and Dad are always worrying about me. I wish they wouldn't; if I really only have a year left, I want to use it to prove that I can be strong... strong like them._

_And that's why I use every chance I get to prove myself._

Jay hurried into the front hall, white-slippered feet lightly patting on the plain, flat carpet as his tail wagged eagerly. It continued to wag as he stepped out of his slippers at the front door, slipping his feet into his simple dark gray shoes immediately afterward. He rarely got to go outside on the night of the full moon; no werewolves went out at night during those times, but very few went out at all on those days of the moon cycle, unless it was to hunt. As such, Jay was very excited; being terminally ill seemed to make one appreciate the little things in life more. And so, he did.

_But usually, when I try to prove myself..._

Jay opened the door leading to the courtyard of the community and quickly ran through it, making sure to shut the door behind him. He briefly glanced around the spacious grassy area, then ran forward. He could see his siblings sitting down and talking off in the distance, and made to run toward them- catching a strange gleam of light in the air as he did so.

_...it gets me into a whole mess of trouble._

He barely had the time to widen his eyes in shock before there was a sudden ripple in the air before him- almost like space itself was distorting. Jay had a split second's warning via another gleam of light before space tore open in front of him, like a tear in fabric, reality cut at jagged edges to give way to an oval-shaped tear that emitted pure darkness.

And he was hurtling headlong toward it.

He ended up diving headfirst through the gap, arms and legs following and suddenly, uncomfortably unsupported. His mouth opened wide in a soundless yell as he fell through what seemed to be everything and nothing: darkness, but light at the same time. Vertigo was taking over; his head spun, vision doubling, tripling, quadrupling, before finally, the confusion and insanity of his entire world being thrown upside down proved too much for him, and his consciousness faded.

* * *

_…_

_There was something white..._

_...a white wolf..._

_...and a dark one...?_

_Were they fighting...?_

_…he couldn't move... the wolves were right there, but he couldn't reach them..._

_...there was fire... fire everywhere..._

_...they were looking at him._

_The white one was smiling, almost._

_…he felt strangely peaceful._

_...he drifted off again..._

_..._

* * *

_**~A/N~**  
_

_Reviews are nice... *hint hint*_


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